The Playing Rules Oversight Panel approved a student-athlete-safety proposal from the NCAA Men’s and Women’s Track and Field/Cross Country Rules Committee to require padding in and around the pole vault box collar. The new rule calls for the padding to be installed by Dec. 1, 2013, wherever NCAA competition takes place.

The NCAA Committee on Competitive Safeguards and Medical Aspects of Sports supported the proposal for safety purposes after ASTM International, a nonprofit organization that provides a forum for the development and publication of international voluntary consensus standards for materials, products, systems and services, released a specification standard on the type of padding device that should be used in and around the pole vault box collar.

The padding must meet the most current ASTM Specification Standard and can be incorporated into the design of the pole vault box or a padding addition to an existing pole vault box. The cost is expected to be about $600.

Previously, panel members had tabled this issue during a conference call in February.

During the comment period leading up to the approval of the new rule, oversight panel members received feedback from coaches who had reservations about adding padding to the pole vault box collar and whether it could distract competitors. Additional concerns centered on how many pole vault tests were conducted, and whether the tests included NCAA intercollegiate pole vault competitors.

After receiving information from ASTM officials regarding testing of the new standard and reviewing data and feedback from NCAA coaches currently using the new device, the oversight panel felt its concerns had been adequately addressed to merit approval of the proposal.

- The box is one of the most dangerous areas in the pole vault. Landing in it is bad. We have serious injuries every year because of landing in the box. - This box collar is almost certainly safe. Although this _exact_ box collar has not been on the market long, collars of the same design (just slightly different materials) have been out for years and have been heavily tested by many schools and clubs and no one has reported any problems. - The NCAA may have been fed exaggerated injury data. If Jan gave them the chart that he posted (and has since removed) on Facebook, and if he labeled it as catastrophic injuries (as he did on Facebook), then he was not giving them accurate information. Many of the injuries he reported were serious but not catastrophic per the definition by the National Center for Catastrophic Injury Research: http://www.unc.edu/depts/nccsi/NCCSIR_injuryterms.html - ^^ That doesn't mean we should not be taking box injuries seriously, but exaggerating the severity of injury claims within our sport hurts us in the long term. A broken shoulder sucks but is not a catastrophic injury. - I think the NCAA was foolish to rush the timeline on implementation. If an athlete is injured next season and claims that this new box collar was a factor, I suspect the NCAA could face potential legal liability for mandating a product before it had been released to the market. Again, I think the box collar is almost certainly safe, but this _exact_ model has not been widely used and if something goes wrong... - Elite and emerging elite vaulters in the US better get used to it because the officials are not going to take it out for your jumps. - We as a pole vault community need to push for mandatory education for college coaches and athletes alike. Let's quit bitching about box collars and get to the root of the problem.

volunteer wrote:so our only option is to spend $41 to get the details ? Wow

The document is just a bunch of technical specs that aren't that useful to the average person. The collar has to cover the upper portion of the sides of the box like the SafetyMax does. It has to be tested to conform to certain force impact specs. No one owns a collar that meets the specs unless you bought one from Gill in the past week or two. If you wanted to make your own, it would cost you more to have the required testing done than it would cost you to buy a new collar from Gill .

volunteer wrote:so our only option is to spend $41 to get the details ? Wow

The document is just a bunch of technical specs that aren't that useful to the average person. The collar has to cover the upper portion of the sides of the box like the SafetyMax does. It has to be tested to conform to certain force impact specs. No one owns a collar that meets the specs unless you bought one from Gill in the past week or two. If you wanted to make your own, it would cost you more to have the required testing done than it would cost you to buy a new collar from Gill .

Actually if you read the PDF it does not require the wings.

The only requirements are

1) Tapered edges at a minimum 105 degrees 2) That the box meets the specified impact requirements given by ASTM

Every time it mentions 'wings' it states, IF the collar has 'wings' then they have to meet the specifications given.

Unfortunately I did not save the PDF, but I'm sure someone in the know can comment here. I remember the picture included with the standard included wings.

Nonetheless, the Gill box collar that is marketed as meeting the standard is the only one that currently does. As soon as I hear of another company making a compliant collar I will pass that along, I'm not making any money promoting the Gill collar!

I saw the pdf when I went to the file to comment on the situation. The photo was essentially of the saftymax box collar which I think sparked most of the debate. The ASTM pdf was not clearly written as it only chose to demonstrate one of the allowed collars. But I do remember clearly that when it talked about wings it talked about if the wings were there. And some other coaches I have spoke to noted that the wings were not required.

However the photo in the pdf was of the SaftyMax and the standards it must fit to be real, so people assumed it meant that was the only way it could be. And then Gill was the only company to respond immediately respond and make a new box that was ASTM certified.

I have a feeling that any other companies could follow the processes to make a ASTM collar that did not have the wings.

OK. I just bought the pdf file. Man, I'm an Engineer that designs microchips for IBM and the wording used in the ASTM document is like reading one of my IBM rule documents that specifies the limitations of how a chip can be manufactured based on a given technology . I had to read the ASTM doc multiple times to follow the wording.

Unfortunately, I can't post the pdf per the agreement I had to "sign off" on when I downloaded it. They need to make money, so I understand.

It DOES require the wings per these 2 exact statement under "5.3 Maximum Dimensions of Box Collar Cutout"

1. "At the horizontal plane of the runway, the horizontal distance from left to right across the rear of the box collar cutout at the front of the bend cavity shall be no more than 29 cm (11 1/2 in.)"

2. "The box collar arms shall extend over the box beyond the upward extended plane of the adjacent sidewall of the pole vault box from a point no more than 20 cm (8 in.) forward from the top edge of the strike plate to the front of the box where the pole slide meets the runway"

There are alot more details in the doc, but it is clear, the wings are required per the above rule statements.

Here are the diagram pics included in the spec for reference to the above rule statements. It appears the numbers I circled in the the diagram do not match what is written in the spec. I'm going to ask Jan about that. Doesn't change the fact that the wings are clearly required though.